


The Sebastian Shaw Affair

by brilligspoons



Category: The Avengers (2012), X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-11
Updated: 2012-06-11
Packaged: 2017-11-07 13:01:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/431483
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brilligspoons/pseuds/brilligspoons
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An elite S.H.I.E.L.D. team is sent on an undercover mission to retrieve plans stolen from HYDRA at the end of World War II. Everything seems cut and dry - until Agent Darkholme recognizes their mark as her brother's future in-laws.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Sebastian Shaw Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the [bigbang_mixup](bigbang_mixup.livejournal.com/profile) challenge.
> 
> SO MUCH love to **darthjamtart** for being my writing and drinking buddy throughout the whole process of writing this story, and also thanks to **pocky_slash** for listening to me babble about this incessantly while she's trying to get work done and beta reading the whole thing multiple times!  <3 <3 <3 <3

_May 19, 2007_

"This is such fucking bullshit."

"Put a sock in it, Darkholme. Oh, and put a little sway in that step, you're on display for a reason."

"You try putting a little sway in your step when you're wearing four inch spikes," Raven hisses. The wire and tiny microphone Natasha had placed on the inside of her dress scratches her skin, and she twists her shoulder a little to settle it more comfortably. "It's fucking annoying, you know? There's gotta be a better way of keeping this thing attached to me. Why didn't we, I don't know, set it into the fucking dress?"

"I swear to god, if you blow this mission because you couldn't handle a little tape on your special snowflake skin, I will take you out myself and it will be totally justified," Angel snaps at her.

"I hate you," Raven grumbles. She ignores Angel's mumbled _right back at you, asshole_ and forces a wide, inviting smile as she closes in on the small crowd of people chatting at the front door. The sealed party invitation Emma had handed to her earlier, printed on stiff and over-sized cardstock and somehow procured by Shaw prior to the mission, slips a little further up out of her purse and pokes annoyingly at her wrist. Raven takes it out completely, notes her code name scrawled across the front, and presents it to the man collecting them from all the new arrivals. He opens it and reads the contents. She doesn't recall anything specific about what might be written inside the invitations, but she's distracted from asking Emma about it when another man, standing close by on her right, very obviously leans forward to get a look at the name on it and then helps himself to an eyeful of her cleavage. Raven clears her throat until she captures his full attention. He stands up straight again and grins at her in what she assumes is supposed to be an apologetic manner. She winks and mouths _fuck off_ at him before wandering into the ballroom.

 _Now, now, Raven, that wasn't very nice. You're supposed to make friends with these lovely people,_ Emma says. The psychic link is comforting now in a way that it definitely wasn't when they first met and worked together. Raven remembers Emma crying with laughter when she'd admitted that her reluctance to allow Emma in stemmed first from her brother's inability to comprehend privacy when they were growing up, and then from his semi-regular mental escapades with his boyfriend at their dinner table.

 _This is a one-off mission, remember?_ Raven sends back to her. _And don't tell me that guy hasn't been shot down before._

 _Reading people's minds without their permission would be unethical of me,_ Emma protests. Raven lets out a laugh, startling several other guests from their conversations.

"Would you please stop that?" Angel whispers. "You're supposed to be an anonymous knock out, not an escapee from the nuthouse."

"You never let me have any fun," Raven says.

"We let you completely demolish a palace in Thailand once just to ferret out an informant with cold feet," Angel says. "Does that not count for anything these days?"

Raven smiles and says nothing in reply. She pulls herself together enough to approach and make conversation with a group of elderly women sitting next to a floral arrangement that towers over everyone in the room. The women seem charmed by her, and neither Angel nor Emma instructs her to move on, so Raven makes herself comfortable and settles in for a long argument over the best knitting patterns for baby blankets. Soon enough, though, a soft chime tinkles through the hall, catching the attention of the guests and drawing their eyes to an impeccably dressed man (the butler, Raven guesses, and a passing impression from Emma tells her she's right) standing at the top of the elaborate staircase. He clears his throat and waits until the room goes completely silent before addressing them.

"Welcome," he says. "Your hosts have been detained by business and send their regrets that they are unable to join you immediately. If you would follow me into the main dining room, please. Dinner is to be served momentarily."

A low hum of activity and chatter erupts, and the crowd of people wander up the stairs and to the right. Raven hesitates. Pepper had told her to take the first opportunity she found to break off from the party, but she doesn't think they meant _this_ early in the evening. She opens her mouth to whisper into the mic, but one of the ladies takes hold of her elbow and tugs her along with them.

 _Don't worry,_ Emma says. _There will be plenty of chances tonight. All we need to do is finish and be gone by midnight. Easy peasy - right, sugar?_

 _It's like you moved into some magical alternate universe in between the last mission and now,_ Raven replies. _Nothing ever goes right for us._

Dinner lasts for two painful hours, over the course of which they are served six different dishes that Raven can barely pronounce, let alone enjoy. The only food that comes close to being recognizable is the fourth dish: a few tender morsels of duck and mushroom in a brown sauce that she practically inhales, much the to the amusement of her new friends. _Mother would be so ashamed of me right now,_ she thinks. _Not that she hasn't been ashamed of me since I fucked off and joined the army, but this would probably make her keel over and die. I think I used to have better table manners than this._

"Sorry," she says. She dabs at the corners of her mouth with a linen napkin. "I really like duck."

"No need to apologize, lovely," one of the elderly women says. "I tend to fall on a good ice cream sundae exactly like that. Can't be helped sometimes." The other ladies nod in agreement, and Raven briefly entertains the idea that this could be her, Emma, Pepper, and the rest of the team someday. The image amuses her, and the others listening in, too, apparently, before Emma reminds her of the limited amount of time she has to get the ball rolling on the actual mission.

Another bells rings, and the servants return with plates of cheesecake drowned in strawberry sauce. Raven's stomach grumbles, and she fights to keep the pained, embarrassed look off her face.

"Christ, that looks like heaven on a plate," Angel says.

"Well, the Lehnsherrs certainly don't skimp on the dessert!" a guest exclaims, and the dinner guests chuckle after an awkward pause.

Raven sits up a little straighter in her chair. _Lehnsherr?_ she thinks. _Emma, isn't this supposed to be the Eisenhardts' place? That's what Shaw said, that's what's on the invitation._

Emma's power hums in the back of Raven's mind, a small slip in concentration that she knows is a sign of irritation and nervousness - or sheer panic, depending on the severity of the situation. _Sorry, sweetheart, give us a second to get Shaw on the line,_ Emma says. _Everything we have in front of us says Eisenhardt - just hold tight, we'll figure it out._

One of the guests near the top of the table exclaims then, and Raven whips her head around, only to find Jakob and Edie Lehnsherr entering the dining room. Raven freezes. She has to get out of there immediately - not the house, no, she has to see the op through to the end no matter what, but the room at the very least. The Lehnsherrs know the face she's wearing, it had been a stupid idea to use it, the comfort of her usual disguise in the face of a tight dress and high heels overriding common sense entirely. She looks down at the cheesecake and tries to calm herself down. _None of this makes any sense,_ she thinks. _Why would Shaw have us going after them? They're the sweetest people I know._

Raven considers the details of the operation. The house is supposed to belong to a couple whose parents had worked closely with Hitler during World War II. The intel, as Raven remembers it, is that the Eisenhardts had escaped the Allies with their young son and a trunk full of specs and plans for some sort of groundbreaking technology, but they'd never resurfaced anywhere the Nazi hunters could find them.

"Shaw's not answering us," Angel says. "We're going to have to wing this one. What do you think, Darkholme?"

She exhales sharply and closes her eyes while she thinks. Pepper's the one who thinks on her feet in situations like this, not Raven - if this were going down in a shootout, Raven would have no trouble getting herself out of it. Instead, she's in a skintight dress, spikes, a hidden wire, the skin she usually wears at home to make her mother happy, and, worst of all, the dining room of her brother's fiancé's parents. _Fucking perfect._

Jakob and Edie are walking around the table, greeting all of their guests individually. Raven bites her lip. There's only one way she can get herself out of this without causing too much of a scene, and it's to cause the biggest scene she can without actually killing anyone.

_Right. Here we go._

***

_February 8, 2012_

Formal events used to excite Pepper. They were few and far between in her old line of work, even after the team had started being slated to go on covert ops in the houses of the rich and infamous. There'd been something satisfying about finding a show-stopping outfit to wear, of drinking decent champagne instead of the swill Angel and Natasha would sneak into barracks, of rubbing elbows with other fashionable people - these were things that appealed to Pepper in a Cinderella sort of way, not having grown up with much in the way of money, and not once did it occur to her that she might grow tired of the love of glitz and glam.

But now that she spends most of her waking moments around them, she's discovered that the people she recalls being desperately envious of are, in reality, vapid and vain, self-centered in the extreme, and only interested in trying to manipulate her into revealing Tony's many secrets. Pepper often finds herself these days mentally listing the various ways she could kill the person she happens to be conversing with at any given moment and make it look like an accident, even taking into account any potential witnesses.

Five years spent as Tony Stark's personal _everything_ would do that to a person, she supposes.

 _Raven would probably commiserate with me,_ Pepper thinks, _after she finished laughing at me for actually being tired of this life._ She tries not to think about Raven, or Emma, or any of her old teammates for that matter. Not knowing whether or not they're even alive helps put them out of her mind for the most part. Still - she misses them from time to time, and that's all. Really.

The planning for this gala has taken up most of the last three months, and she takes it as a great personal success when Tony arrives, surveys the shimmering crowd (literally shimmering, mind - there are more diamonds in the room reflecting off the chandelier light than Pepper thinks is reasonable), and immediately turns to her with a brilliant smile stretching across his face. At one point in her life, maybe, Pepper would have gone weak in the knees at the sight - she's not afraid to admit the massive crush she'd had on him as a teenager - and the genuine happiness in his expression is so rare these days that she does a little anyway.

"You've outdone yourself with this one, Pep," he says. Tony reaches out and squeezes her hand. "I don't know how you manage to do, well, everything, and I probably don't tell you how much I appreciate it, but -"

"Oh, no," Pepper says. "I think you maxed out your 'I'm dying and should therefore go around scaring people by being polite' quota with that stunt last year." She notices his hand involuntarily twitch upward to the center of his chest, but he catches himself before completing the movement. "Besides," she continues as if she hadn't seen anything, "you know I never pass up a chance to buy a fancy new dress with your money. Don't underestimate that particular incentive."

"I wouldn't dream of it," says Tony. The orchestra starts up their first set of the evening, and he holds out a hand to her. "My date seems to be running a tad late. May I have the honor of the first dance, Ms. Potts?"

She takes his hand and winks at him. "I won't even complain about being your second choice," she replies.

The music the band plays isn't something Pepper recognizes, but she can hear Tony humming along with it whenever he pulls her in a little closer. She knows he's scanning the crowds for signs that his date has arrived, and she smiles into his shoulder. The Tony Stark that most people deal with on a regular basis, Pepper has learned over the last few years, is an obsessive control freak at best and spoiled child at worst; she's present for most of the board meetings and project proposals and can attest to the fact that both of these assessments of his character are accurate - but only to a certain extent. Even before the _incident_ in the Middle East, Tony had been circumspect in letting people get close to him. Pepper still isn't sure what it was about her that made him choose her as his assistant and confidant, but after spending day in and day out with him for five years, she is certain of one thing: Tony is simultaneously the biggest jerk in the world and the biggest heart in the universe.

Tony twirls her into the end of the waltz, and as they clap along with the rest of the guests and he draws her into conversation with some CEO or another, Pepper takes a moment to glance around the room. The music has started up again, another waltz with a faster tempo, and most of the guests are blurs of color against the backdrop of the walls. Pepper smiles politely at one couple dancing past her and turns her gaze to the other side of the room.

The last person Pepper expects to see at that moment is Natasha Romanov.

In some ways, Natasha hasn't changed a bit - fire engine red curls, fondness for clothing that fits like a second skin, eyes that draw you in so completely that you lose yourself in them even as she's shooting at you. The sight of her gliding perfectly in time with the music across the ballroom floor with another guest is both terrifying ( _why are you here, why now, what's going on_ ) and strangely relieving ( _you're alive, my god, you're alive_ ). Pepper watches her for a long few moments before remembering how her legs work, and then she excuses herself from Tony's side to monitor Natasha's movement.

She wouldn't be within a hundred miles of this place without a reason, Pepper is certain of that. There are, of course, any number of things she could be after - Tony's personal servers are loaded with plans and specs and data that would have most governments and organizations weak in the knees - but Pepper still has some contacts in S.H.I.E.L.D., under a different alias, of course, and the chances of her not knowing about an op in relation to Tony are low at best.

_Unless she's not with S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore. If they think she's dead like I did..._

But the idea of Natasha having left is almost laughable, presumed dead or not. Pepper knows Natasha's allegiances as well as any of the other people they'd served with - a break from S.H.I.E.L.D. would mean a break from Barton and Coulson, which would only happen in an extreme case. Still, the possibility settles itself in Pepper's mind as she follows Natasha from a distance. There's no way Natasha doesn't already know she's being followed, but Pepper keeps herself as far back as she can without losing sight. The waltz ends, and the guests clap as the orchestra stands and bows. A security guard gives Pepper a questioning look; she shakes her head and signs that it's nothing, she'll take care of it. He seems skeptical but remains at his post.

The distraction is enough to let Natasha slip away from the crowd and Pepper's watch, though. Pepper curses under her breath and rushes out of the ballroom and down the hallway to where the entrance to Tony's workroom is located. Anything Natasha could potentially be after would be there, and Pepper will be damned if she lets Natasha ruin the one good thing in Pepper's life, old friend or not.

***

_June 21, 2007_

Emma's not normally one to drown her sorrows in alcohol. The Frost family, as a general rule, is much more fond of spending a few quality hours in the country club's shooting range to exorcise their demons, and Emma herself has always enjoyed losing herself in tai chi. She is, however, one to admit the necessity of making an exception for specific, more delicate situations - this being one of those, of course. Emma feels little compunction about stumbling into the first pub she can find that doesn't smell like a barn, ordering a bottle of scotch, and crawling inside it as quickly as possible.

 _At least it's decent scotch,_ she tells herself three quarters of the way through the bottle. _That has to count for something. It's certainly better than the piss that Nat and Angel insisted was the only thing they could find every single time they went on the liquor run._

She pauses at that thought, then pours herself another two fingers and raises the glass in salute to her former comrades. Emma knocks the liquor back in one swallow and sets the glass down on the bar. It's stupid, silly, childish, and she knows it's just been a few days since they all ran, but Emma misses them desperately.

"Drinking to forget, I see," the barkeeper says with a leer. A quick look into his mind tells Emma that he's hoping she'll still be around at closing and drunk enough to go home with him.

And, for a brief, dark moment, Emma entertains the idea.

She pours the rest of the scotch into her glass and drinks, careful not to wince when the liquor burns the back of her mouth on the way down. "Quite the contrary," she replies. "I plan on remembering every little detail." She draws a fifty from her purse and tosses it onto the bar, then stands and leaves the bar, ignoring his disappointed glare.

Drunken one-night stands have never been her style. _Besides,_ she thinks, _there are only so many embarrassments I can handle in one day, and I think I filled my quota with that phone call home earlier._

The street outside the bar is dark, damp, and blessedly empty as she wanders back to the hotel her sister had told her to stay at until they could safely send someone to collect her. Emma doesn't expect to hear from anyone in the family for at least another week - Adrienne isn't prone to bouts of benevolence, especially in regards to Emma, and the sneer in her tone had been more than clear over the telephone line. Coupled that with the residual disdain for Emma's choice to join the military, and Adrienne's unlikely to even think about her around their parents and siblings. She stumbles to a halt in front of the hotel and stares at the front of the building. The doorman calls to her, asks if she needs help getting inside, and she dismisses him with a wave of her hand and a mental nudge to go chat with the bellhop he's been dying to fuck for the last six months.

 _So this is it,_ Emma thinks. _This is going to be the rest of my life. Beholden to whatever passes as my family's good will because I couldn't keep my mouth shut and do my job. Fucking brilliant, Frost. Well done. You've managed to prove Father right._

"Are you going inside, or are you going to stay out here and freeze?"

Emma whips around to find Angel fluttering mid-air above her. It's not often that someone can sneak up on her without her knowing, and for all intents and purposes, Angel shouldn't have been able to do so, what with how much noise her wings generate. Emma curses herself for drinking so much.

"They're probably tracking all of us," she says. Emma flicks her hair over her shoulder. "I hope you have a good reason for being here."

"A healthy sense of paranoia, that's good," Angel says with a nod. "You're going to need it when you agree to what I'm about to ask you to do."

Emma sighs and lets her head fall back. The lights on the front of the hotel are blurred and brighter from this angle. She considers her options. She could very well turn and walk into the hotel; Angel isn't the type of person to press when she knows she's unwanted, and it's not like she can do much damage to Emma anyway. There's also the possibility of suppressing Angel's memory of ever finding her, sending her back to whatever hole she crawled out of - it'd be kinder, safer for both of them in case Fury's got operatives waiting for them around the corner like she suspects he does. Emma doesn't have to listen to whatever proposition Angel's brought her. She doesn't. One of the bulbs in the overhang lights blinks and fizzles out suddenly. Emma raises her head again.

"Talk fast, Salvadore," she says, "and don't bore me. You know how much I hate to be bored."

Angel's lips twist into a smile. "Yeah, I remember. Let's go inside and take advantage of your sister's, ah, generosity. I don't think my client would appreciate me discussing this with you out in the open. You understand."

Emma shrugs and motions for Angel to follow her inside. None of the hotel staff notice, she makes sure of that. The elevator ride up to the sixth floor is quiet while Angel fidgets with a cell phone and Emma silently wonders if she still has time to wipe Angel's mind. Dread grows in her stomach as she realizes Angel knew about her phone call to the Frost family mansion. _Looks like I don't have as many choices as I thought,_ she thinks. Emma may hate most of her family, but the need to discern whether or not they'll need to be warned about any incoming danger gives her a small measure of resolve to hear Angel's proposal out.

"Let's hear it," says Emma as she closes the hotel room door behind her. Angel falls back onto the bed and groans.

"Oh, this is nice," she says. "I have got to find out what sort of mattress this is."

"Angel."

"Yeah, yeah. It's been a long couple of weeks, you know?" Angel closes her eyes. Emma leans with one hip against the dresser and stares down at her. "Of course you know. Otherwise you wouldn't be begging your family for help, am I right? But whatever, that's not what I'm here to talk about."

 _I could tear it from your mind,_ Emma tells her. _I could ruin you._

Angel levers herself up to rest on her elbows. "I've found myself a sponsor, of sorts. A benefactor. He wants the thing we were looking for at the Eisenhardts' place, and he's willing to pay massive amounts of cash to get it."

"The Lehnsherrs, you mean," Emma corrects with a pang of guilt that Angel's expression echoes. She shakes her head, as if that will rid her of the memory of their bloodied faces and tangled limbs. "They didn't have it, in case you forgot that part."

"Like I ever could." Angel sits up properly and looks up at Emma. "He knows who does, though. It's going to take us some time, is all."

 _That's what we were told before, and didn't that end poorly for everyone involved?_ Emma keeps that thought to herself. She needs a drink, desperately, but she swallows down the urge to open up the mini bar. "So you need a partner, for - what?"

"Because I can't do this on my own, and also the money is really fucking appealing right now," Angel says, and _because I need to know we didn't murder innocent people for nothing_ flits across her brain just loud enough for Emma to pick up on it.

Emma doesn't need another reason.

"I'm in," she says. "Tell me everything."

***

 _February 8, 2012_

There's a brief pause, a breath held, as it were, when Pepper walks into Tony's workroom and finds Natasha hacking into JARVIS. Natasha stops typing and looks up, and they lock gazes, simply staring at each other for what feels like an eternity. Pepper doesn't dare end the moment but wonders if she could make it to the alarm before having her ass handed to her.

Natasha snorts and looks away first. "Even without Frost around, I can tell what you're thinking," she says. "Don't bother, I disarmed the thing. For a genius, Stark doesn't have a lot of safety measures installed. I'm almost past this AI."

"Not many people are stupid enough to even try," Pepper replies. "And for the record, you're not."

"Not what?"

"Past JARVIS."

The computer screens start blinking red, and a loud screech echoes throughout the room. Tony's watch will be alerting him to the intrusion any second now, so Pepper has about a minute to figure out what Natasha is doing there. She lunges for a keypad by the door and enters a series of digits, which initiates a lockdown. Steel walls come crashing down from the ceiling and lock into the floor on all sides of the room. _That'll buy me some extra time._ She turns back around to find Natasha scowling at her from across the room.

"Quick on your feet, Potts," Natasha says. "I guess you haven't gone completely soft."

"Thanks. I think." Pepper takes a step forward but stops when Natasha brings out a gun from what Pepper assumes is a thigh holster and aims it at her heart. Pepper holds her hands up in surrender. "I'm unarmed, Natasha, and only the door behind me will open once Tony breaks through the lockdown."

"Like I couldn't take him and his entire security team out in under two minutes," Natasha scoffs. "And don't tell me you're unarmed. There might be five years between you and the military, but nobody forgets their training that easily."

Pepper shrugs. _It was worth a try._ "Why are you here?" she asks. "Did Fury keep you on after Shaw tried to kill all of us?"

"I'm not with S.H.I.E.L.D. anymore," replies Natasha. Pepper can't tell if she's lying or not, she never could. "I have an employer who took me in, got me established with some new credentials, whatever I needed. I'm freelancing now." She tilts her head to one side. "This is supposed to be the big break, and we've been working towards it for a long time. Also, it's - well, personal."

"Personal," Pepper repeats.

"Like you don't know."

From somewhere else in the room, a safety clicks off, followed by another. There's movement in the corner of her eye, but Pepper keeps her gaze trained on Natasha, who swiftly draws another gun from god knows where and points it diagonal from her. Behind her, on the other side of the steel wall, Pepper hears muffled shouts from someone who sounds like Tony, but her attention is drawn from both him and Natasha when one of the other people in the room with them speaks.

"What I'd like to know," says Emma, "is what the _hell_ is going on here."

Pepper's jaw drops as Angel and Emma emerge from behind one of Tony's cars, Emma's gun on Pepper, Angel's on Natasha. Natasha's presence is strange and surprising enough as it is. To have the three of them in the same room, after almost five years of no contact whatsoever, is more than a little disconcerting for her. It'd be a happier reunion, she feels, if only the chances of being shot weren't quite so high.

"This isn't exactly what I imagined when I thought about us finding each other again," Pepper says. "I don't suppose Raven is going to jump out at any point, is she?"

Emma and Angel exchange glances, then shake their heads at her. Pepper looks back to Natasha, who sighs and whistles a short note. Raven stumbles out from behind a metal cabinet and grins crookedly at all of them. "Hello, ladies," she purrs.

"Unbelievable," Angel murmurs. Pepper silently agrees, though she admits to herself that it's a relief to see Raven hasn't changed much, regardless of the circumstances under which they're meeting.

Behind Pepper, the door slides open to let Tony in, then slams back into place. Pepper lets her head hang down on her chest as the other four turn their guns on him. _Of course he'd show up and lock the door behind him,_ she thinks. _I knew I should have pushed the secret code words and hand signals more._

"Wow, this is awkward," he says. "Uh, Pepper?"

"Pepper," Natasha and Emma say simultaneously. Natasha jerks her head in Tony's direction.

"I know, I know," she says before turning around to face Tony.

***

_January 3, 2008_

Raven slams the door to her apartment shut behind her. The tenant upstairs, an elderly man who literally growls at her when they cross paths in the hallway, bangs on his floor and yells something about the noise level. She resists the urge to go up there and choke him, which is really showing more restraint than she thought she had left after today. The banging eventually stops, but it's followed by him increasing the volume on his television - Jeopardy, judging from the faint rumble of Alex Trebek's voice and the chime of a contestant signaling that they might have the right answer. She sighs heavily, lets her purse drop to the floor, and just stands in the middle of her living room, willing the exhaustion and frustration to leave her body. Her muscles ache something awful; she knows that has more to do with having to focus on keeping her disguise active all day than it does with having to lift heavy boxes and stock tall shelves.

 _What a fucking nightmare,_ she thinks as her skin ripples back into her natural form. _How the hell am I supposed to keep myself from going off the deep end?_

Her phone buzzes against her foot. The only people who have her number are Charles, Erik, her girlfriend Irene, and the owner of the bookstore she works for. Considering she left the store twenty minutes ago, the caller is probably Charles, who seems to have memorized her schedule down to a fraction of a second. Raven sighs again before picking her purse up and digging around in it for the phone.

"No, I won't be coming home any time soon," she says.

"I wasn't going to ask that," protests Charles. "Am I not allowed to just call for a chat? To catch up with my baby sister? Ask her how her day went? If she happens to have gone on any exciting dates recently?"

"If you ever called 'just to chat', I'd maybe believe you. What do you want, Charles?"

There's a pause on the other end before he says, "We're postponing the wedding again."

Raven stares out the window at the building across the street. "You're putting the wedding off again? But - why?"

"Lehnsherr Manufacturing has been - well, chaotic is probably the best word for it, since Erik's parents died. There's a lot he needs to take care of already, and they've just signed a new contract with Stark Industries," Charles says. "So we discussed it, and we think that holding off for another year or two is a wise move."

She closes her eyes and tries not to let the guilt overwhelm her. "I guess I should see about getting a refund on that bus ticket, then."

"About that -"

"Charles, no -"

"Just come home that weekend. We'll stay in the city, catch a show or two, eat our weight in sashimi. I'll even take you shopping to make up for forcing you to come out here. Deal?"

Raven hates that he feels the need to bribe her into spending time with him these days, but she considers his offer. The bookstore and her weekend job at the neighborhood YMCA have kept her afloat for the most part, yes, but - she smooths her free hand down the front of her pants, noting how threadbare they've gotten recently. She does need new clothes, and she misses being able to afford food that isn't beans and rice and discount frozen chicken. It'd be nice to go home for a weekend, to let Charles spoil her, to wander around their old stomping grounds...

"Raven? Are you still there?"

"Okay, Charles," she says. "You win. I'll come home that weekend."

"Excellent!" The relief and joy in his voice makes Raven feel much better. "You should bring that girlfriend of yours along with you! I'd like to meet her."

She groans. "I'm not bringing Irene with me," she tells him. "You'd get on with her too well, and then I'd never get her back. I know how you are."

"Don't be ridiculous," Charles says. "I'm not any way with anyone, how dare you insinuate otherwise."

"That might be the biggest lie you have ever uttered out loud," says Raven. "I suppose you've already bought a ticket for Irene, which is why you're telling me to bring her."

"Now that you mention it, yes, I have."

She laughs in spite of herself. "Alright, alright, I'll see if she's free that weekend, you tyrant." She pauses, then says, "Thank you, Charles."

"Anything for you, my dear," he says.

Raven calls Irene after that, acting comically horrified at the idea of her brother meeting her girlfriend while Irene giggles and says _yes, of course, I'd love to meet Charles, I thought you'd never ask._ It's silly, she knows, and she wouldn't have been caught dead like this while she was still with the military, but she can't help the stupid grin that's plastered across her face later as she's using the metal bar in her closet to do some pullups. Irene is the one good thing that's happened to Raven since that last, nightmarish mission with S.H.I.E.L.D., and if nothing else in her life is going right, she's glad she at least has her.

She drops to the floor and works the tightness in her fingers out. The neighbor's television has been off for hours now, and the quiet is only broken by the low hum of cars passing by the building on the street below her. Raven stretches and moans in satisfaction when her neck cracks, feeling infinitely better than she had earlier in the evening.

"Time for sleep," she mutters, and just as she's about to step out of her closet to fall into bed, one of the floorboards in the living room creaks under pressure. She goes on alert instantly and reaches for the stick she uses to prop open the window in summer. Holding the makeshift weapon close to her chest, Raven moves along the wall, stepping only on the balls of her feet and keeping her breaths slow and steady. She stops just outside the door and listens. There's definitely another person in the apartment - whoever it is hasn't made a sound since the floorboard, but Raven didn't spend eight years in the military and black ops fucking around.

She exhales, then spins into the other room with the stick already thrusting forward into the intruder's abdomen. But it's blocked - the other person has it caught between their wrists, and then they're forcing the stick back into Raven. They bring one forearm up to Raven's face; she shields herself but in the process is pressed back into the post. She sweeps the other person's legs out from under them and follows them to the floor a moment later when they return the move.

"Will you stop already?" the person says. Raven scrambles away.

"Natasha?"

"Subtlety is lost on you, as usual," is the reply. Natasha slips the dark cap off her head and grins at Raven. "Glad to see you made it out alive, though. I wasn't sure I really believed it when I found out."

Raven gapes at her, then shakes herself. "Christ. I thought you were dead."

"I think that might have been the point."

"What are you doing here?" Raven stands and offers Natasha a hand up. "I'm not complaining, believe me, but isn't this dangerous? S.H.I.E.L.D. might be watching."

Natasha nods her head sharply. "That's sort of why I'm here," she says. "I have a job proposition for you."

It's on the tip of Raven's tongue to say _yes, god, yes, tell me everything, I'll do it_ without even hearing the terms first, but she stops herself. Things aren't great, that's for sure, but - she has Irene to think of, and she can't just pick up and leave again without telling Charles, not when he's dealing with Erik's grief and anxiety. She clenches one hand into a fist. "Look, I appreciate it, I really do, but -"

"Your girlfriend," Natasha interrupts, pulling photos out of her pocket and tossing them down on the floor by Raven's feet. "Your brother, his fiancé."

Something cold and heavy forms in Raven's stomach. "You wouldn't. This can't be that serious, Natasha, you -"

"I'm getting paid a lot of money to make this happen any way I can. I don't want to, but I will. You know that."

Raven does. She hesitates another moment, then sighs and nods. "Fine. What do you want from me?"

***

_February 8, 2012_

"I really don't think this is necessary," Tony says. He tries to shift his arms forward into a more comfortable position but fails.

"I must have missed the part where you had any say in this whatsoever," Emma replies.

"I mean, it is my workshop, and you're using chains I generally use to suspend my cars while I work on them to tie me up," he continues, "so I think I have more say in this than you think. Also you seem to have hijacked my personal assistant, which is just not okay."

Emma shuts the padlock and turns to look at Pepper. "Is he always this annoying?"

"I don't normally call it 'annoying' because of the whole needing to keep my job thing, but I can see how you would perceive it that way," Pepper says. "Now that you've tied my boss up and locked us in here for the foreseeable future, would you mind letting me in on what the hell is going on?"

Angel hops up onto one of the tables and sets her gun down on the table next to her, swinging her legs back and forth. "I don't know about Natasha and Raven," she says, "but Emma and I are being paid a lot of money to steal some tech and some plans."

"Same," Raven says, ignoring the glare Natasha shoots her. "We've been on the trail for a couple of years now."

"So have we," Angel says. She looks like she wants to say more, but she doesn't continue.

Pepper taps a finger against her lips. "So what is it you're looking for exactly?" No one answers her. "Oh, come on, you've already made me help you tie up my boss and give you almost unlimited time in his personal workshop."

Natasha sighs and gestures to Emma. "I've a feeling it's the same thing," she says, and Emma nods. "Christ. Fine. Since that's the case, Pepper already knows exactly what we're looking for."

Pepper blinks. "You mean -"

"Exactly."

"How the _hell_ -"

"I guess I'm the only one in the dark here, then," Tony says. "Again. Not my favorite state of being. Right down the list with being tied up."

Angel grabs a piece of cloth from one of the work tables and stuffs it in his mouth. He glares up at her and then at Pepper, who waves a hand at him.

"You can stand to be quiet for just one second," she tells him. "I'll explain in a minute." She rubs a hand over her face. "You're sure. You're absolutely sure?"

"The details I received when I was first hired were identical to the mission notes," Emma says. "That's the only reason I agreed to it in the first place."

"Same here," Natasha says.

Pepper gathers the bottom of her dress up in one hand and sits down in one of Tony's chairs, wondering again what exactly is going on. It can't be a coincidence that both pairs of women were searching for the same thing that had led to their split, Pepper's certain of that. She glances at Tony, who's not quite patiently waiting for someone to tell him the whole story, and then around the room at each of her former teammates, who are eyeing his computers.

"Tony," she starts, "I'm about to do something you asked me not to."

He looks her in the eye, then nods and says something that gets swallowed by the gag. She stands back up and walks over to him and undoes his bowtie and the first few buttons of his tuxedo shirt. The arc reactor glows bright on his chest. Pepper is struck, not for the first time, by how beautiful it actually is, both in form and function. Behind her, a gun safety clicks off, and Pepper turns around to find Raven's come up close to her.

"So you've known about the arc reactor technology the whole time," Raven says. The gun in her hand wavers almost imperceptibly. If Pepper were anyone else, she wouldn't notice the movement at all, or know what it meant for Raven to doubt her resolve enough not to fire it immediately. Pepper knows that she has one chance to change Raven's mind before being shot now that she's revealed exactly what they're looking for.

"I had a feeling it was what Shaw had sent us after," she says, "but I never saw the plans, after all, and at the time it was just different enough to throw me off. Tony created this himself in captivity, and it's keeping him alive, and that's all I ever needed to know about it."

Raven smiles. "Practical as always."

"Been my middle name for a while now," Pepper replies. She pauses, then leans in past the gun into Raven's personal space and murmurs, "You know I can't help you with this, right? There's too much at stake for me here. I can't compromise the trust I've built with Tony more than I already have, not even for you."

Raven's expression turns bitter for a moment before smoothing out again. "You're in love with him, aren't you."

Pepper stares at her in silence for a moment, then shakes her head. "'There are as many forms of love as there are moments in time,'" she says.

Raven rolls her eyes, and the air between them seems to clear at once. She points the gun down at the ground and replaces the safety. "I hate that you just quoted a movie based on an Austen book to me," says Raven. "You know how much I hate Austen. I'm going to get you back for that one, don't think I won't."

"Suck it up, buttercup," Angel says. "We don't really have time for this. Emma and I were supposed to check in twenty minutes ago."

Pepper nods. "Tell me everything."

***

_May 20, 2007_

Pepper glares at Emma before she can even say anything and pushes her away from the door so Angel and Natasha can enter. They're holding Raven up between them and moving slowly so as to avoid jostling her too much, but every other step results in a sharp intake of breath and a low groan. Emma stands off to the side, numb and off-balance, watching as they bring Raven over to a bed and lay her down. She wonders if anyone had seen them fleeing from the wreckage, if the chaos of the smoke and fire and stampeding guests had been enough to hide three women in night ops gear carrying an injured blue woman in an evening gown into the woods from the rescue helicopters' spotlights. _Too late to do anything about it now,_ she realizes, and it's not a funny thought at all, but she starts to laugh, and it's only when Pepper shakes her that she realizes she's crying, too.

"What the hell happened?" Pepper asks. Her tone is harsh, but she wipes the tears away with her sleeve and cradles Emma's face in her hands when she's finished.

"Intel was wrong," replies Natasha. "Very, very wrong."

Emma leans forward and rests her head on Pepper's shoulder. "Raven knew them from somewhere," she whispers. "The Lehnsherrs, not the Eisenhardts."

"What?"

She stands back up straight and looks Pepper in the eye. "Intel gave us the wrong name, or the wrong couple, I don't know which. Yet. Shaw wasn't answering. You didn't answer either."

"Hill wouldn't clear me for active duty again until I re-qualified on firearms," says Pepper. "She had me down there well past midnight. If I'd known, I -"

"I know," Emma says. She pats Pepper on the shoulder and pushes her aside to give Raven a once-over. "What's the damage?"

Angel throws a hand up. "Give her a couple days, she'll be right as rain. As far as I can tell, it's all cuts and bruises, but until she wakes up, I can't be completely sure." She sits down hard on the chair next to the bed. "Someone want to make a guess as to what the fuck just happened to us?"

Emma resists the urge to worry at one of her many broken nails. "Intel told us the Eisenhardts were Nazis, that they escaped to America with their son Jakob after the end of the war with plans for a new type of energy source that they'd been developing with HYDRA. They died sixteen years ago, but it was assumed Jakob still had the plans and might have been working on a prototype."

"Not the Eisenhardts, though?" Pepper asks.

"The Lehnsherrs, Raven called them," Natasha says. "They're a manufacturing empire. Raven's brother is engaged to their son, Erik."

Emma paces the length of the room. "How did we not know this beforehand?" she wonders out loud. "None of the research Angel and I did leading up to the mission gave any indication that they were anything but what the intel told us. And I've never known Shaw not to have done his own homework properly, either."

Raven sits up suddenly, batting at Angel's hands when she attempts to push her back down on the bed. "Stop, stop. Erik told me once that his grandparents were scientists with HYDRA, but under duress," she tells them, wincing at the stretch of her cuts as she swings her legs back over the bed to rest on the floor. "They were Jewish, but they had been working on something important before the war, so Hitler assigned them to finish their work under some peon's supervision. Klaus Schmidt, I think his name was."

"So they escaped from that?" Natasha asks. "How?"

"They had help," Raven says, "but Erik doesn't know who. They said it was a rich American scientist, but they never mentioned his name. They took the plans and a half-finished prototype and ran the first chance they got."

Emma considers this information in relation to their original mission. "And now Jakob and his wife are dead," she says. The room goes very still, and Raven's expression crumbles. "So we can't ask them to corroborate. That seems almost convenient."

"Convenient? What do you mean by that?" Angel asks.

"Jakob was the only person left alive who probably knew who helped him and his parents escape," Pepper says, catching on to Emma's point. "He was probably the only person who knew where the plans for the energy source were hidden, too."

Emma walks over to the door. "We need to find Shaw. There's something we're missing here, and I want to know everything he does," she says, but the door flies open, and she narrowly avoids being knocked into the wall by it. To Emma's surprise, Shaw steps inside the room, wearing an odd helmet and a bespoke suit. She stares at him as she regains her balance and tries to read his thoughts, but there's only static. "How did you -"

He taps the helmet with one finger and smiles at her. Emma shudders at the sight. "Apologies, darling, but I can't have you spoiling yourself and your teammates for the rest of your evening," he says. "I hear the Lehnsherr mission went wrong. What a shame, truly."

Emma notices a thin layer of black soot on his fingers, and realization strikes. "You said _Lehnsherr_ , not Eisenhardt. It was you," she says. The others jump to attention, and Shaw's smile grows wider. "You blew the mansion up, you -"

"Tut, tut, Agent Frost," he says. "I told you - no spoilers. I'm ever so disappointed in you."

He reaches out a hand towards her, and she has just enough time to shift into her diamond form before her whole world goes up in flames for the second time in as many days.

***

_February 8, 2012_

"I barely noticed his hand," Pepper says. "I was much more interested in getting out of the room as quickly as possible."

"Honestly, I didn't even think about it before tonight," replies Emma. "The helmet he was wearing prevented me from reading his mind, but I always assumed it was something S.H.I.E.L.D. was developing to cover their own asses."

Natasha shakes her head. "I knew people in the science divisions," she says. "Unless there was something covert going on, that helmet was not one of their designs. I remember a similar design when I was training in Russia, but it was old and no one knew where the one finished copy had gotten to."

"I think we know now," Raven says with a snort.

"No, I mean it had disappeared decades ago," says Natasha. "Unless Shaw is much older than he looks and also involved with the Russians, I highly doubt he's the one who stole it."

"We know exactly two things for certain," Emma says before Raven can continue arguing with Natasha. "One is that Shaw is a mutant or a super-powered human of some kind, and two is that he's somehow responsible for what happened that night."

Pepper buttons Tony's shirt back up, listening with half an ear as the others discuss what they do and do not know. She's at a disadvantage, she knows, not having been directly involved with the operation, but there's some point she thinks they're missing. Her mind goes back to the beginning of their conversation. It hits her then, the thing that none of them have mentioned since they first got locked in the workshop together.

"Natasha," she says, "who's paying you to bring back the arc reactor plans?"

"Why is that important?" asks Natasha. Pepper glares at her. "Fine, fine. A man, older, approached me not long after we split up and offered an absurd amount of money for me to recruit a partner of my choice and track everything down."

Pepper glances over to Angel, who shrugs. "I've never actually seen the dude," Angel says. "I got a package with a lot of cash, the plans, and a note telling me to do the same."

"Was it signed?" Pepper asks.

"Just initials," replies Angel, frowning.

"K.S.," Natasha says. Angel nods.

"Klaus Schmidt," Raven says after a brief pause. "Fuck. How is that even possible?"

"If he's a mutant like I think he is, any number of possibilities present themselves," says Emma. "Without knowing his exact mutation, though, I can only speculate. It's probably energy-related, which would explain why he's fixated on an energy source like the reactor."

Tony snorts, drawing their attention back to him. Pepper removes his gag, and he opens and closes his mouth a few times before saying, "You don't know how right you are. I recognize the name. My father worked with a mutant named Klaus Schmidt when he was undercover during the war. Energy absorption and output - I read some of Dad's files," he explains when Pepper shoots him a look of surprise. "Stop looking at me like that."

Pepper sits back down. Emma sits next to her and knocks their knees together. "It couldn't be that - is it possible that Schmidt and Shaw are the same person? It's not, is it? That's crazy," Pepper says.

"If Schmidt's mutation involved the ability to use the energy he absorbs to keep himself from aging, maybe, but we don't know that for sure," Emma replies. "I think we should be more concerned with the other forms of output. He's already shown us part of what he can do, and with the energy he could get from the arc reactor -" She stops and looks at Tony.

"Lots," he confirms. "God forbid he makes more than one, or a huge one like I've got in my plant. I don't really want to think about what he could do with that much energy. I mean, we're talking output greater than a couple nukes, at the very least."

"Christ," Angel mutters. "He's played us twice now, and he probably wants to blow up the world. What are we supposed to do?"

Raven waves her gun in the air. "We take him out, of course."

"Simple as that?" Pepper asks with a grin. Raven and Natasha return the grin, and Pepper laughs when Emma and Angel groan. "You missed this, admit it." Emma sniffs and looks down her nose at Pepper, but she doesn't deny it.

"So," Tony interrupts, but he stops when Pepper glares at him. "What? All I want to know is whether or not you're going to untie me now that we know what game we're all playing."

"He's got a point," Natasha says. "Stark has resources we'll need to take Shaw down, now that we don't have the bad guy himself backing us."

Tony jerks his head in her direction. "See? Ms. Assassin 2012 agrees with me."

Natasha tosses a knife to Pepper, who catches it deftly before using it to pick the padlock open. "Sorry, Tony," she says in a hushed voice.

He swings his arms back and forth and winces. "I think we need to update your job description to include 'apparently kicks serious ass'," he says, and Pepper knows then she's been forgiven. Her shoulders slump in relief. "Now," Tony continues, "what's the plan, super sleuths? How are we handling this one?"

Pepper shakes her head when the other four turn and look at her in disbelief. "He bounces back pretty fast," she says. "You get used to it eventually."

"You know, a lot of how this might play out is going to rely on Shaw not knowing what we're up to," Raven says.

"Yeah. What's your point?" Tony asks.

"It's just - I think the chances of him knowing something's gone wrong by now are pretty high. How are we supposed to convince him everything's proceeded as planned? We know he's capable of killing without direct provocation - how's it going to go when he actually is provoked?"

Natasha clears her throat in the ensuing silence. "Are the plans for the arc reactor complete, or are they still in draft format?" she asks.

"Draft," says Tony. He taps his chest. "This was all me flying by the seat of my pants."

Pepper hits his arm. "You're thinking you'll need to take him along with you," she says. Natasha nods. "So that's why it took you so long, why you haven't checked in already. You were getting him to disable to the alarm system and give you the drafts. He might think it's too convenient at first, but at least it's something for us to go on."

"Perfect," Emma says.

"No, definitely not ideal," Tony protests. "I'm so bad at being taken prisoner. It's really just not a good idea at all."

Pepper shushes him. "Okay," she says. Angel and Natasha come in closer, and Pepper reaches over to squeeze Emma's fingers. "Let's make sure this is an airtight plan. Last chance to make all of this right."

***

_February 10, 2012_

Raven really does not like the plan.

Too much of it relies on their individual abilities to ad lib, and she's fully aware of the fact that that is not her strong point. Raven has always excelled at physical activities, and while she's not completely stupid, she's much better at solving her problems with her fists than she is at talking her way out of things. Her solution to the Lehnsherrs potentially seeing her at the dinner party all those years ago had, after all, been starting a fight with the gentleman sitting across from her, which resulted in the unfortunate upending of several plates full of cheesecake and strawberries onto other guests' laps. Raven suspects that Emma would have had her head on a platter for that tactic if that night hadn't ended in the deaths of sixty people and Angel and Natasha having to drag her body out from under a pile of rubble.

And yet, here she is - alone in the middle of Central Park, with three tubes strapped to her back. The sun has mostly set, and Raven feels as if she's hidden enough to let her skin ripple into her chosen disguise. The fading orange-red light sets the bare trees aglow. Raven wonders what Irene is doing at that moment, where Charles and Erik are in their extended honeymoon - she stops herself before she starts to wonder if she'll ever see them again.

Footsteps behind her. Heavy, from the thick crunch of gravel, definitely male. Raven inhales sharply. _This is it._

"Mr. K.S., I presume," she says, attempting to keep her tone light and even.

He chuckles. "You know exactly who I am. Please, let's not play games with each other, Agent Darkholme," Shaw says. "Oh, do excuse me. Are you going by Xavier again these days? Or do you come up with a new name for every face you put on?"

Raven huffs and allows herself to revert back to her natural form before turning around to look at him. Shaw's wearing the helmet, which puts a bit of a wrench in part of their plan. She balls one hand up into a fist behind her back. "I suppose you're pleased with yourself," she says, "knowing that it took Natasha and me this long to figure out who you are."

He smiles and nods. "Yes, well, I'd hoped to keep up the charade a bit longer, but it was only a matter of time before you arrived at the truth. No matter. I see you have something for me. No hard feelings, then?"

"You killed Emma and Angel," says Raven. "I think you can assume I have a lot of hard feelings."

"And yet you've completed the mission as requested. You're a step ahead of the other pair I sent after the plans. Well done. Is Ms. Romanov close by?" Raven nods. Shaw spreads out his hands in front of himself and glances about. "Well? Where is she? Seems like an odd time to pick up nesting habits from Barton, seeing as she's not seen him in years."

"She'll be along," Raven says. "I asked her to get me a coffee while we waited. Your message wasn't exactly specific. Very unlike you, Shaw."

His smile turns sour. "You have no idea what I'm like," he says. The _little girl _shot is implied, and Raven grits her teeth.__

 _Stick to the plan,_ she reminds herself. A mental brush from Emma lets her know she's not alone anymore, and she relaxes a little. "The plans are here, what good they'll do you," she says out loud. "I don't know much about engineering, but I do know these aren't exactly finished."

Shaw glares at her. "I'm one of the people who originally worked on those. I'm more than capable of finishing them, you little twit."

More footsteps behind her let Raven know the others have officially arrived. She doesn't turn around, savoring instead the way Shaw's face falls when he sees who it is.

"That wasn't very nice," Angel says. "I think you owe Raven an apology, especially after she went to so much trouble to retrieve your useless plans."

There's a thud on the ground next to Raven's feet. She looks down to find Tony, bound and gagged, on his knees and breathing hard. Shaw moves past them to say something biting to Angel, and he glances up and winks at her. Raven grins and looks over her shoulder. She can't hear what they're saying to him, but the low growl of Shaw's voice tells her he doesn't like it, whatever it is. Emma gestures to Tony. _Ah,_ Raven thinks, _the big reveal. Now we just have to not die, is all. Easy peasy._ She faces forward again when Shaw walks back up to her and Tony again.

"You'll be a thorn in my side just like your father was," Shaw tells him.

 _Well, that's one theory confirmed, at least,_ she thinks. Raven feels Tony's shoulders rise and drop in a shrug.

Shaw looks at her and scowls. "Emma and Angel are dead, are they."

"Oops," Raven says with a smile. "Must have had some bad intel. You know how that goes. But Pepper, man, Pepper is definitely dead. No two ways about it."

Of course that's when Pepper chooses to step out of the treeline. Shaw reaches out a hand to swipe at Raven, and she braces for an impact, but a bullet shoots through Shaw's arm and knocks him away long enough for her to move instead. His body ripples weirdly, not at all like hers does when she changes her skin, and the sight makes her shudder uncomfortably. She grabs the ropes around Tony's chest and pulls him out of the way as Shaw roars and lashes out at them.

"We don't know how his power works really," Raven says. "Try not to let him touch you."

"That's so unhelpful," Tony replies.

She draws a knife out of her ankle holster and presses it into his hands before shoving him away and down the hill. Natasha and Angel are drawing Shaw's attention away from her and towards Emma, who, theoretically, can withstand most of the things he can do. Raven's not entirely sure she wants to test that theory, though, so she takes the tubes off her back and removes their contents. An arrow drops out of one, and a long strand of fiber optic something or other (Raven's eyes had glazed over during Tony's explanation, but she figures it couldn't have been all that important) falls out of another. The third tube isn't so much a tube as it is a collapsible crossbow, which she loads with the arrow.

Tony comes up next to her and hands her back her knife. "I really hope you know how dangerous that was for me," he says. "What if I'd stabbed myself in the back? Hmm?"

"Considering the blade wasn't actually released when I shoved you, I'd say you were fine," Raven says. "How does this hook up to the arrow again? Ah, got it." The wires lock into the arrow, and Raven stands to take aim.

"You sure you're going to hit him?" Tony asks. "We don't really get a second chance at this."

"If you so much as breathe at any point during the next thirty seconds," says Raven, "I will stab you." She brings the crossbow up to rest against her chest and widens her stance. Thirty yards away, Emma's throwing a punch at Shaw and immediately drops down to sweep his legs out from under him when she misses. He's back up a second later, skin still distorting strangely every time Angel spits fire or Natasha and Pepper shoot at him.

Raven exhales and lets the arrow loose. It lodges itself at the base of Shaw's spine, and he gasps as the impact knocks the air out of his lungs. Emma lunges forward and rips the helmet off his head, and then - he stops completely.

"I have him," Emma says. "Barely. Will you hurry it up, Stark?"

Raven grabs hold of Tony's arm and tugs him along with her. "Don't you dare think about pressing that button until we're closer to them," she warns him.

Moments later, there's a series of explosions where they'd just been standing, contained by a shimmering force field that reminds Raven of Emma's diamond form in direct sunlight. She ignores it, however, in favor of watching Shaw's body wilt and turn to dust and then to nothing. Turning to Pepper, she asks, "How did we know this would work?"

"We didn't," Pepper says.

"No, we did," insists Tony. "Well, in theory, anyway. But hey, at least I know my energy conversion cable works now, so well done, team."

Raven closes her eyes. "I'm going to see my brother," she announces. "And then I'm going home to my girlfriend." She grimaces. "And if any of you decide to drop off the face of the earth while I'm celebrating not living in fear for a change, I'll kill you." She opens one eye to find them all grinning at her. Natasha reaches over to wipe a bit of dust off her shoulder and ends up patting her on the back.

"Sounds reasonable," Angel says.

"Because Raven has always been known to be a reasonable person," Emma scoffs, but the relief in her voice softens the blow.

Raven huffs out a laugh. "Let's get out of here before the cops show up."

The sirens start up as soon as they reach the street, and NYPD cars speed past them and into the park a few moments later. Raven stares at the flashing lights disappearing over a hill and wonders if they shouldn't have collected up the pile of dust that had been Shaw. But Natasha and Angel both grab hold of her, and she forgets the worry as they start to discuss where they'll go once they've had a rest. She leads them through Manhattan to her brother's apartment and watches the way Pepper leans into Natasha and Emma both and they back into her, how Angel wistfully glances at the subway entrance they come across, and how quickly Tony is tapping a message out on his cell phone.

 _All done,_ she thinks. _All done._


End file.
